


[But to Brazenly Grasp This Dying of the Light]

by PassionsPromise



Category: The Expendables (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-04 03:24:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4123951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PassionsPromise/pseuds/PassionsPromise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.”<br/>~<br/>Norman Cousins</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Barney always thought he was the last of his kind, the only one to control the brazen element of fire. In a war-ravaged world in which the King is a mysterious being, people are separated, enslaved, and forced to believe that light can never be found, even in darkness.</p><p> </p><p>All of this changes, of course, when Barney saves an Air Manipulator with eyes the colour of storms and a heart as fragile as glass...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. {And So They Meet}.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes. This is me writing Avatar: The Legend of Aang. For adults. 'Cause it sounds freakin' cool ^^

 

His heart beat faster than it had in all the years he’d been caged; his breath came and went in ice-cold gasps, and sweat trickled faster than all the rivers in this goddamn endless forest down his back. Frost and fog clung like icy fingers to the trees surrounding him, and high above his head he could feel the watchful gaze of the midnight moon.

There were no stars to guide him tonight. There hadn’t been any for the past few nights in a row.

Everything was quiet, and the rain continued to drizzle like a sickness under skin. In the dense cold of the moment, everything shifted into sharper focus; the blurred edges of his vision was hyper-aware of the Dispatchers that chased him from far behind. He was standing in the middle of the stream that bled, cold and soaking wet, in between the torn leather of his faded boots, and the charcoal-black slacks he’d stolen from god-knew-where was fast losing its heat.

His body had never felt so cold, so lifeless, in all his life.

He closed his eyes and sensed everything; the trees, the unforgiving flowers that bled a bloody-red ever since he entered the forest, and the sickeningly-sweet smell of poison from the mushrooms that seemed a little too big to be normal. The unsteady flicker of luminous green paved the paths all around him, and if he listened close enough, he could even hear the steady breathing of the forest itself as it stretched in all directions around him.

He couldn’t fight them, not like he tried to fight the King; his body was spent, and he knew it was only a matter of time. From the folds of his clothes, eight sharp dagger-knives unsheathed themselves, and under the glint of the moon they shone like pearly-diamonds.

He threw one with careless ease.

Blood and screams dashed the sky.

 

 

 

 

 

“Did you hear the news-?”

“Yeah, the _human_ … He isn’t really in Westray forest, is he?”

“Stupid bastard: what gives him the right to run away from the axe? The King’s Men will find him, and they’ll kill him, like all those dirty animals-”

“… they’ll only contaminate it, the bastards…“

Barney Ross stopped wiping the glass and watched the gathering of people in the tavern with vague eyes. Yin stood close by, eyeing the group. Something was off. Very off.

“Westray forest,” he said, like it was an explanation in itself- _It’ll kill him before the Dispatchers do the job._

Barney Ross said nothing, and no one noticed the sudden flare of the fire in the fireplace at the very end of the Expendable tavern.

 

 

 

 

“There’s something very wrong about this,” Barney said later that night.

Yin cocked his head to the side. “You think? Sending anyone into the forest, criminal, human or otherwise sounds downright weird to me.” When Barney didn’t say anything, Yin knew they were both in for a bumpy ride. “C’mon, Barney. It’s the middle of the night, and Trench will be coming back soon…”

“Do you mind holding the fort while I’m gone then?” Barney said, placing both hands on one of the many misshapen tables in the tavern. He looked away from the dying embers of the fireplace to his trusted friend’s side. Yin watched him as he wiped another glass.

“Sure. But you won’t get involved if it’s human?”

“No. I won’t.”

“Good. Those bastards have every right to die after what happened to this world.”

 

 

 

 

Tool stood at the very edge of the forest when Barney found his way through the darkness of the village, coming to its peak when he found the small grassy road. He pulled out his pipe.

“You feel it?” he said.

“Feel what?”

Tool fought the urge to roll his eyes. “I may be able to tell truth by putting my finger on a man’s skin and letting my ink do the rest, but for someone like yourself, you really don’t come across as a brainy, fiery Prince, do you?”

Barney growled. “Don’t mess with me, Tool.” The village was behind them, the pointed roofs a mere fingerprint in the distance, and right in front the haunted trees curled upwards, toward the black-as-midnight sky. It was very early morning; the-once stormy weather had all but just died down. Tool pointed to the trees.

“ _Listen_ ,” he said. Barney listened, and felt it then.

The trees were whispering in the non-existent breeze. Air was being pulled, magically, toward the very centre of the forest. He stilled.

“You see what I see?” Tool grunted.

“That can’t be,” Barney muttered. “Never in all my years…”

“I’d say the King’s Men are hunting down someone a little more preciously-extinct than a human,” Tool growled, “Wouldn’t you?” If venom spewed from the aura of inky darkness around Tool’s stock-still body, Barney pretended he hadn’t seen it.

Barney was already off walking into the treacherous forest with nothing but the breeze to pull him in. The air was calling him closer, closer, closer, to someone who could control an element.

Elementals were as rare- possibly just as extinct- as humans. If the King had hold of this particular Elemental…

Barney didn’t want to think about it. He kept walking, kept moving, and noticed that this was the first time the forest stayed still and quiet enough for him to find the person who created the wind as easy as breathing. He noticed the deathly-red hue of the flowers, and wondered if the forest flowed with the blood of the Dispatchers, or the blood of an Elemental doomed to die.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The stranger couldn’t see a thing; the world all around him spun on an axis he couldn’t control. Hands flew out from his sides when he felt the blunt edge of a dagger flying past his cheek, and he tripped over his aching legs when a rock caught at his ankles.

_Keep running-_

He jumped up again.

There must have been five left.

_Don’t stop running-_

He jumped when another blade came swerving in from his right; quickly, he ducked and grabbed the fallen blade just in time to fling it back. He heard the blade sink into unguarded skin, and another scream swelled the night air.

Landing on his knees, he keeled over. The poison from the mushrooms and the flowers was starting to overtake his body, and sweat soaked his clothes. He was aware of water rushing downstream somewhere, and had been following the water when a circle of them came down on him.

His body was sick with tiredness; he could feel his hands shake with exertion, and knew he couldn’t take much more of it. He swallowed the rising bile in his throat, and blinked the very moment he heard footfall not ten feet off from his right. He unsheathed another blade, his last, and fired it off just in time to hear another of the fallen hit the ground.

_Keep running. Don’t stop running. Keep running-_

He went to stand, then toppled again to his knees. He couldn’t breathe, not properly, and-

“He’s here!” someone yelled, not too far away.

The memory, of fingers burying themselves into his skin and the whisper of _“You’ll never escape-“_ reached his ears just as someone yanked him up from behind. His body ached with the pain; he’d been running for days on end.

He didn’t stop.

He couldn’t stop now.

Not until they all fell down, not until the bastard had stopped chasing him, stopped telling him he was a possession and…

His mind shut down. _No._ He wasn’t going to think about it. He couldn’t-

He closed his eyes, and found the fire to fight inside himself. Jerking an elbow backwards, he drew the breath out of the guy behind him, and found the strength to stand again. His fingers somehow managed to clasp themselves around the hilt of another dagger, and he used it to shoot down the second son-of-a-bitch who tried to pin him back down into the murky mud below.

His feet sunk again into water, and he shuddered before striking out at the last one who came running for him, but just as he was about to strike, his aim went off-kilter and he felt himself pitch forward into the mud. He didn’t even have the strength to cover his face and landed harshly on his side.

He was too tired to even move, and he….

 _Fuck it._ He didn’t really want to.

He gave up, and waited for the sharp blow of death that never came. He thought he saw fire. He thought he heard screams.

He couldn’t really remember.

 

 

 

 

 

Barney watched as the smaller stranger fought against the group of men that surrounded him. The shadows struck against bloody, muddy skin and the shivery breaths of someone closer to death than dying. Anger thrummed under his veins; the kid was definitely made from Air. The breeze all around him was unsteady, weak, as if it had been used to its last, but it was there all the same.

He saw the stranger fall once. And again, and just as he was about to be killed, he made his move.

A well of something close to fury jolted the flame out of his body and struck one of the bastards while he came running toward the kid. He was enshrouded in flame within the second and the fire consumed the area around him; Phoenix flame remained until its owner decided to kill it, and while it was still lit he rushed out into the murky stream of mud and wrapped strong arms around the weightless, unmoving body under him.

His hands were shaped around the kid’s lungs; he’d never felt a shuddering heart pound with so much tiredness. The kid wasn’t able to breathe properly, and when he listened closely, he could hear whimpers, not breaths, as if the act of breathing in itself was something closer to misery than it was natural.

This wasn’t even a normal death-sentence; this kid had something inside him the King wanted to kill.

Barney was sure he knew exactly what it really was.

Protectiveness, that innate human instinct he was well known for among his friends, enveloped his body and grew to encompass his mind. Whatever, or whoever, had this kid running wasn’t going to hurt him anymore.

_He’d make sure of that._

The forest around him felt peaceful, in all the abnormal ways the world around him was quiet. He thought the forest was meant to be dark and dangerous, but he actually found the place was safe; nothing except for the weakly-poisonous mushrooms that danced around the forest floor and welled out of the cracks in the tall, tall trees, offered any kind of danger to him.

And when he reached the opening where he went in, he wasn’t surprised to see the rising sun and a waiting Tool.

“Called it,” Tool said, indicating the kid in Barney’s arms before gesturing back toward the village.

They needed to get him in before anyone saw or heard anything.

Barney grunted. “So did I.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Who in hell’s name is that?” Trench said when Tool swung the back door of Expendable and found a couple pairs of eyes staring right back at him. The kid in his arms was still wheezing away, and hadn’t let up in all the time they’d taken from walking from the forest to the village.

Yin piped up, taking his hands off his hips as he saw Barney’s furious gaze, “He isn’t human, is he?”

Barney shook his head. Caesar took one look over the table to Barney’s right and stopped eating. “Shit,” he said. Doc dropped the plates he was washing when he registered how badly the kid was injured. Scars and blood could be seen under the folds of soaking-wet clothing.

“You’re fucking telling me,” Barney replied, indicating upstairs. “Don’t open the tavern for a couple hours.” He carried the kid upstairs, still stuck between both fury and amazement at how weightless the kid was. Tool followed all of them up to the top floor of the three-storey building, clambering his way through one of the many hallways in the private part of the Expendable house. Each man had his own room, and there were plenty more of them spread throughout the entire place; Barney took the kid to a new room that hadn’t been used before finally putting him down on the bed.

“I don’t know how many days, even weeks, the kid’s been chased-“ Barney said, before letting Doc take over, waving his hands gently over the kid’s exhausted body.

“This is the kid that was chased by the King’s Men,” Doc simply said. “Judging by the flesh wounds under his slacks, I’d nearly say two weeks straight, without stopping.”

“He’s an Elemental,” Barney said. No one spoke a word. Doc looked over his shoulder.

“I kinda got that. He also just so happens to be incredibly sick. His Element has been stretched to its last.”

“How is that possible?” Barney quizzed.

Doc shrugged. “That’s my power, Boss-man. I can tell you the injuries, no matter how deep, physical, emotional, anything. I can try my best to heal ‘em and see what happens. But I don’t know how they were given, why they ended up on the kid’s body, or if the scars will ever leave.”

“You forgot the part about being about to inflict pain too,” Trench grumbled.

“Not the time for it, Trench,” Tool spat. Under the weight of the atmosphere the kid’s breath was the only sound to be heard, and Barney, under the light of the rising sun to his left, finally got a good look at the kid’s muddy and messed-up face.

His skin would’ve been pale-white. Fingers long and creased with years of use with a blade. Eyes laced with a knowledge that would’ve broken the world, shoulders broad with it’s burdens. Right now, all he could see was a shit-load of pain.

“I can feel a broken rib as well, which would’ve slowed him down,” Doc murmured as his eyes drank in the weepy body under his inspection. “The clothes need to come off- I need to see the damage.”

His hands gently clasped the front of the kid’s shirt, but before he could pull the material, a pair of shaking fingers grazed his wrists. He looked up to see feverish-grey eyes. The kid’s legs pulled up, as if trying to fight.

“Don’t-“ he wheezed. Barney winced at the pain in his voice, before reaching over and clasping Doc’s shoulder. His eyes locked onto the kid’s, and the kid looked up to him, eyes suddenly steady and unflinching. There was weakness there, but something inside the kid was trying so very hard to get the strength to somehow manage to fight back.

“We aren’t here to hurt you,” he said, softly, gently. “Just rest. The men are all dead.”

“I know they are,” the kid rasped, his voice gravel-thin. “Please, let me go.”

“No.”

“ _Yes_ ,” the kid answered, before being wracked with shuddering coughs. Barney didn’t notice the others leave the room; he couldn’t, not with someone like this in so much pain. When he saw blood, he knew things were only going to get worse.

“Listen here, kid,” he reached down and grabbed the kid by the shoulder, forcing him to lie back down. “Relax. You are safe here-“

“No. _I’m not_. I’m not a fucking _idiot_ ,” the kid backfired at him. Doc had the sense to grab both wrists and push him down into the bed, but that made the kid pull against them more. Something close to fear laced the kid’s eyes, and without thinking, without wanting to do anything more than comfort and reassure, Barney reached down to the kid’s chest and allowed the skin of his bare hand to heat, to warm and steady the trembling skin under his.

Barney was sure his eyes glowed the inner, telltale fire.

He was sure that under his gaze, the kid visibly relaxed, melting back down into the bed. His breathing relaxed, softened, and his eyelids flickered once, twice-

“I thought I was the only one left. That’s what they told me,” he whispered. “That’s what everyone kept telling me.”

Something inside Barney cracked a little when he heard it; the kid truly sounded like something broken and long-gone.

“You aren’t.”

“No. Guess not,” the kid’s eyes were shut, but they both knew he was still aware, still listening out for signs that the dream was just a dream and reality was about to come crashing down at any given moment. Barney softly smiled.

“You aren’t the only one, kid. And neither am I.”

A gentle breeze swirled around the pair of them, unconscious, unknown. Doc felt it raise the hairs on his arms, and he smiled a little when he saw the lines of peace etch themselves into the now-sleeping form of the Elemental.

“He’s gonna be fine.”

It was only once Doc got up off the bed and surveyed the kid’s body one final time that it finally dawned on him. The blood drained from his face. “He was beaten,” he whispered. Barney froze. “There are scars _everywhere_ under those clothes, Barney.”


	2. {And So Their Journey Begins}.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand here we go! Next chapter!! Sorry it took so long: I've been so busy lately that I haven't had time to post anything! ^^ I hope you enjoy this and will try my very best to get the next chapter done within the next week or so!

“The Men are on their way,” Trench muttered under the darkness of a vengeful moon.

Barney’s thoughts scattered across the embers of the dying fire in front of them. The Expendable Tavern sat; quiet, in the ashes of the night. It was past two: everyone was asleep save for them both.

“How do you know?” Barney breathed, listening for a change in the kid’s breathing, a change in the air he couldn’t recognize yet somehow knew lingered like a deathly touch. Little Aeris was in the midst of a wandering storm: when it hit, no one would be able to avoid it.

“The people of the village were talking, of course,” Trench grinned, a manic rage of teeth and crinkled history. “How else?”

“Guess it’s time to hit it then. Aeynor sound good to you?” Barney said.

A Cheshire grin lit up the darkness. “Of course. Can we go out with a bang?”

 

 

 

 

 

Five days after, the King’s Men cracked down on them: the ensuing battle was, indeed, a spectacular one for Little Aeris.

Trench would know.

He was the one who couldn’t die.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I still don’t understand how the Men were able to track us,” Yin said as he pulled on the reins of the horse, “You said all of them were killed when they tried to track down the kid.” The mountains of the deep countryside spread like wildfire all around them.

Barney grunted. “We can’t worry about that now. We need to get to Aeynor, find Drummer.”

“You sure it’s a good idea to bring the kid into the city? Drummer would know who he is before we even reach the threshold of the city,” Tool said, tossing a sideways glance in Barney’s direction, down toward the kid sleeping in Barney’s arms. Barney stopped, faced the mountains close to their right, and watched as the sun started to rise over the sleepy, red-blue sky. The world all around them was a painted fantasy, a chaotic mess of clouds and forests and something mysterious lurking under the surface of this painter’s world.

Trench pulled up the rear. “Admiring the view?” he called. “In case you didn’t notice, we didn’t actually _kill_ all the bastards. They’re still tracking us.”

“Aeynor’s only a day’s trek from here, Trench. Keep your pants on,” Caesar grumbled.

“I’d say it’s in the wind,” Tool murmured from out of nowhere. Barney glanced over his shoulder to take in the well-worn face and sage-like eyes. They were trained on the kid, and then on him. “They’re tracking him through the air currents.”

Even before he said it, Barney wondered if it was true. He was holding the damn kid, and even he could feel the shift in the air.

“Fuck,” he said. It made damn sense, though.

“If that’s true, then were never gonna get away from them,” Trench said. “So, are we gonna kill every single one of them Men or something?”

“No, we stick to the plan,” Barney jumped. “We get to Aeynor, we find Drummer, gather a team-“

“Like the old days?” Yin said, doubtful. “Barney, _look_ at us. We’re hardly able to keep morale up anymore-“

“Well,” Barney grumbled, “We’ll have to- and if we can’t, then I’ll find my way through myself. You don’t-“ he stopped before he went on, feeling the warmth and weight of the sleeping kid in his arms, “You don’t _have_ to keep going. If any of you want to-“

“Hell _no_ ,” Trench said, fire and mischief and just plain badassery lighting his eyes. “You know me, Barney; I can’t die, so there’s no point in me missing out on all the fun.”

Yin grinned. “Sure. What he said.”

Doc raised a hand. “I’m going to have to stay anyways- God knows what sort of bloody messes you’d get into without me.”

Tool pointed a finger at Doc, “Sure. What he said.”

Caesar and Trench bumped closed fists. “Were in this together, Barney,” Caesar said. “That kid means something to you. And to us.”

A restless breeze rustled the grass below their feet. The sun glowed like a beam in darkness. The world was dashed with heated hues and fiery-blue skies, and something lifted in Barney’s chest.

The kid stirred in his arms, settled closer to his skin, as if that was where he was meant to be all along.

God only knew how much Barney suddenly wished that were true.

A Christmas wind pulled his eyes from the kid, and up to the skies above. “Storm’s coming,” he said.

“A bad one at that,” Tool continued. “So let’s get going.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

They arrived in the grand city of Aeynor after eleven that night: as usual, the city was coated in the pearl-white lights of glass and towering pillars that touched the sky. Aeynor, the city of reconnaissance and winding, wild, and sprawling streets that burrowed in and out of forest-like buildings and glass-like houses.

Aeynor, the city where one pulled all the country’s strongest underworld spies and above-ground politicians, where thieves and fast-trained slys lived and thrived on knowledge.

Aside from the King’s Palace, there was no place in the world with a city this massive, sprawling and downright annoying. New technological advancements were made everyday in Drummer’s domain, so it came as one hell of a fucking surprise that the one place that didn’t change would be the hideout of the once-victorious Expendables: Arun Tavern.

It was a shack, to put it mildly, kept in one of the city’s best-kept secret locations: underground. Drummer knew if someone was using the place because the doors were tapped with some techno-junk even Trench didn’t understand. Only the team ever used this place, hidden under the highways and beaming, white lights of the city far above their heads. Of course, Barney knew that while it looked like a shack from the outside, inside, it was so much more.

When Yin first glimpsed it this time ‘round, he scoffed, “Back to Hell’s pit again.”

“Ah, they painted the flowers next to the windows,” Trench chuckled, noticing the electric switches just under the sills- detonators. “How sweet of them,” he added. Caesar sniggered.

Doc held open the wooden door, “Drummer’ll be on his way by now, I’d say.” He flicked on the lights and Barney shouldered his way into the wide, spacious hall in front of him.

“I’m gonna drop the kid into one of the rooms,” he said, carting the kid’s body into one of the closest bedrooms, where he pulled back the covers and put him down. He watched him a second longer, taking in the creases of age and fear on his face. “Whatever Doc pumped into you sure is bloody strong,” he muttered. Course, the kid didn’t reply. The darkness inched its way into his voice, and he looked up to take in the room they were in.

This used to be his room, before the Expendables disbanded for reasons not even he wanted to remember.

“Hasn’t changed one bit,” he muttered. There wasn’t a speckle of dust to be seen: Drummer would make sure someone kept an eye on the place, even if Arun wasn’t officially used anymore. The window was tinted: he could see out to the darkness, but the darkness couldn’t see in. The wardrobe would probably still be full of old weapons: axes, guns, those tracking things Doc was so fond of. He grunted a smile, feeling the silence around him and knowing that to be back here sure brought back the kinds of memories he thought he’d forgotten.

He shut the door behind him, leaving the kid to his sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I’d a feeling you were coming after I heard about Sleeping Beauty,” Drummer grumbled with hands in pockets in the doorway of Arun Tavern. As usual, his suit was pristine. “So, what are we going to do with him? If the Men track us here-“ he stepped forward, the floorboards soundless under his feet.

“Were thinking of assembling a team, taking down the Men before this gets out of hand,” Barney replied, grasping his hands in his lap. Yin smirked.

“Yeah, I agree with that,” Drummer pointed to Yin. “You do realize how fucking huge the King’s Men are?”

“Yup,” Barney replied. “How could I forget? We did fight them once.”

“Well, why not overthrow the King while you’re at it?” Drummer rolled his eyes. “You do fucking realize the King is-“

“Yes. I do,” Barney backfired. “Do I look fucking stupid?” He stood up, fire lacing the tips of his gloved fingers. “ **Think** , Drummer- he had an _Elemental_ in his grasp! What other people do you think he has locked away under his key?”

“You tell me, Barney,” Drummer growled, “You’re the bloody Prince of-“

“No. _Not here_. I’m _not_ anything like that here.”

“You’re powerful enough, Barney. The Gods bloody know that,” Drummer groaned. He stared at his best friend, eyes as gray as the moon, but just as clear as they had been when they first met. “What, you _want_ help? Sure, I’ll give you all a hand, but _not_ to kill an army. You can’t take them out: there are hundreds _, thousands,_ of them. And we don’t know whether some of them are compromised in their positions. We **need** another plan of attack.”

“You remember what happened all those years ago, Drummer. _Don’t_ try to be stupid,” Barney murmured, the fire leaving him: he knew he was caught in a corner. The war a couple years back nearly killed all of them: he wasn’t going to risk it again. “Killing the King won’t come to any good. Not in this world.”

“Why?’ Tool mumbled from a corner of the hallway. They all looked over their shoulders and saw pools of smoke in the corner of the darkened hall. Something slipped like oil under Tool’s skin. “I wouldn’t mind giving it another go.”

“We lost-“

“Do you honestly think even Billy would take this shit? There could be another plan under this one, Ross. Don’t be stupid, remember? Even **_this_** looks a little fishy to you; don’t try to hide it. The King’s Men probably _are_ compromised-“ he looked at Drummer as he said that, stepping out of the croaking shadows. Drummer nodded wordlessly. “- But the King isn’t. When we fought that battle, Barney… think of how bloody _naïve_ we all were, Gods with all the power we thought we had. Billy _died_ simply because we weren’t aware, weren’t strong enough. The King isn’t stupid: we aren’t either. Not now.”

“That… can’t argue with that,” Drummer sighed. The mention of Billy’s name warped the atmosphere, shifted something beyond all of their control. Barney averted his eyes and found the wooden floor.

“There could be others, Barney. Like the kid. Suffering under that bastard we call a King. We know it, all of us know it,” Tool said, as if it was a simple fact. “Could you imagine if there was a plan of attack under _him_?”

Barney stood, deliberating, remembering. Ashes. Smoke. Fire. His eyes flickered with memories he longed to forget. They _lost_ Billy.

Barney lost his brother, his friend, to a man who wandered through sand and thought nothing of taking life.

Barney did not want to lose another of his friends.

He felt him before he saw him; a ripple in the air told him the Elemental was awake, walking, listening. His eyes flickered to the shadows Tool had come from.

He saw blue eyes glittering from the airy darkness, a white shirt that floated in the darkness.

“I didn’t think you were awake,” he said.

Those blue eyes blinked, and a foot came out from the darkness.

He was made from Air, something transparent and magic and pale-white. His shirt was a size too big, black slacks a little longer than they should’ve been. He wasn’t smiling, but staring straight at Drummer. Barney could feel everyone’s eyes trained on the nameless stranger. No-one spoke a word: the air rushed around them, between them, through them. Barney could feel the oxygen drain from his lungs, and knew a burst of uncontrolled energy was about to explode in the air around him.

“For _your_ information,” a distinctly British voice thrilled under the cover of smoky air. Drummer’s feet were sucked backward, and he was plastered against the wall within a half second. _Strong_ , Barney thought. He was extremely strong. He felt no fear, though. Nothing. A mask hid all the kid’s flickering fear.

“My _name_ is Lee. Not _fucking_ Sleeping Beauty.”

 

 

 

 

 

Trench sensed there was something wrong in the silence of Aeynor’s sunny morning.

He stepped out of Arun, and listened closely. Yin appeared beside him, sleepy-eyed and ruffle-haired.

“What is it?”

“They’re coming. The King’s Men.” He uttered with a curse.

“How can you tell?” Yin’s eyes widened slightly, peering closely at his partner’s face. Drummer hadn’t even arrived yet, hadn’t even told any of them what to expect once the knives came raining down from the sky.

“Listen,” Trench whispered. Yin listened.

“I can’t hear anything.”

“That’s precisely it,” Trench said, placing a hand on Yin’s shoulder with all the gravity of his years as a slave, as a vigilante, as a friend and comrade. “When the Men come, even nature stops breathing.”

“We should-“

“I’d nearly say Drummer is on his way,” Trench said, clicking his tongue. “We better get ready. A war is coming.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

They stood on the Pique, the tallest point in the city.

Lee looked down at the buildings without fear, hands in his pockets, and a small smile on his face. A calm shuffle toward the edge of the roof told Barney everything he needed to know: Lee could walk lines he couldn’t imagine, and go places he’d never be able to reach. Even now, Barney watched Lee and saw a transparent body caught in the soul of a child.

They were left standing, together, alone.

A hundred things passed through their minds, and yet they didn’t speak, because to speak meant to break a moment that couldn’t last forever.

They were looking out over the world, a world doomed to change. Lee glanced over his shoulder, and his breath fogged the early-morning air. Above them, the sky was dashed in purple, pink and red. Each colour illuminated the cool rage in Barney’s eyes: Lee could see a soul dashed in fire and, dazedly, he wondered if that truly was what Barney was- an unrelenting fire caged in the body of a man.

“You control fire,” Lee said, his shirt rippled with the swaying movement his body made as he turned to face the phoenix.

“You control air,” Barney returned, looking deep into the eyes of a bird who longed for nothing more than the open skies and the promise of freedom.

“You’re the man who pulled me out of the forest.”

Barney didn’t answer.

“And here you are, standing right beside me, when they told me every single one of my kind were dead and gone,” Lee murmured. “You’re _still_ here.” The British accent thrilled and scared Barney: there was something horrifically beautiful and hauntingly real in the small sounds of his voice. It reminded him of something that sustained over time, something that was long-lost and gone within the fragile moment of a second.

The sadness in Lee’s eyes was something deeper than wells or seas or anything as wide as the sky itself. Lee breathed in the sunny, frost-beamed air and looked infinitely older than Barney could guess.

 _He looked_ , Barney dazedly thought, _like something conjured from air itself._

“You’re free, though,” Barney ventured.

“No,” Lee bit out, “Never free.”

“They-“

“-can track me by the winds, the air. Everything that breathes. They’ll always track me; I’ll never be free.”

_The scars on his body._

_The bruises._

_The rasping breaths and the shuddering heartbeat under the touch of his skin that night._

Barney bit his lip.

“Were gonna fight them. You can either join us, or you can leave. You’re free, Lee, whether or not you want to believe it.”

Lee breathed out, and a small flutter of air trickled playfully over Barney’s head.

“I wish,” he said, “I could be free to make the choice you’re giving me. But I also know that if I walk from this… I will lose a part of myself.”

Barney found darkness in Lee’s words.

Something sparked inside him. Anger.

He imagined Conrad Stonebanks, imagined his white teeth gleaming in the darkness, and imagined with sickening clarity what he done to this broken kid standing in front of him.

“He destroyed my people too,” Barney said. Lee nodded.

“I know, Barney Ross,” Lee whispered, his eyes closing with the flow of the wind. “I’ve heard the stories about the Prince who was visited by the wandering stranger.”

With the whisper of his words, Lee turned into a wisp of air.

He was gone.

Barney looked to the skies. He knew there was no point in calling out his name: the wind had already taken him away. For now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Sir-“ one of the Men said.

“They’ll have gone on to Aeynor. The Fire Eater and the airless,” a pair of diamond-white teeth glittered in the forest. He looked to the purple skies above him. The world at his feet was dashed with bloody hues- whether or not they were the bodies of his Men, or the ghostly effects of the bloody flowers, he wasn’t sure.

Barney Ross was still alive.

Alive. Not **dead-** the ashes on the graves scattered all around him told him so.

A tremor of something unclear ran under his skin.

Conrad Stonebanks tasted fear and grinned.

“Let’s go greet our Gods,” he said to his Men. “Let’s show them what happens when you disobey your King.”

The hundreds at his command flitted through the forest with him. Stonebanks lifted a hand and threw down a sharp, steel knife. The sound of it cut through the silent, still forest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The girl of nineteen years was dressed all in teal, her wavy blonde hair flowing with the gentle breeze of Aeynor’s streets. She smiled under the hood she wore.

She could feel the earth stirring under her feet; the cobble lock streets at this time of night whispered of danger and a silence that spoke with cold clarity. To her, the silence said that the King was finally, finally coming.

Her fingers caressed the weightless space under her cloak; she could feel them both, the one moulded in flame, the other kissed by air. She was breathless with happiness.

They wouldn’t be able to find her, not yet.

Not until tomorrow, when _he_ finally graced the streets of Aeynor.

Luna stepped forward and disintegrated into the earthy dust of the street.

It was almost time to reveal herself to the world, and to prove that the last Earth Shifter was not as dead as Conrad Stonebanks first proposed.

 


End file.
